Bank of Agriculture and AFAN to Finance 400,000 Farmers for 2026 Dry-Season Cycle

The Bank of Agriculture (BOA) has entered a partnership with the All-Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) to provide financing to about 400,000 farmers preparing for the 2026 dry-season farming period. The programme is intended to broaden smallholder access to agricultural credit and help sustain production outside the rainy season.

Programme aims and structure

According to reporting by national outlets, the financing drive is being implemented through a BOA initiative known as the Renewed Hope Smallholder Support and Value Chain Fund (RH-SSVCF). The scheme is designed to support farmers with capital and value-chain interventions so they can cultivate crops during the dry months, when irrigation and inputs are required.

Officials involved in the arrangement have framed the effort as part of a broader push to promote year-round agricultural activity. News reports indicate the partnership's objectives include improving food availability and strengthening farmers' incomes by extending credit beyond the traditional wet-season window.

Why it matters

Dry-season farming can raise yields and stabilise supplies, especially for staples. By targeting hundreds of thousands of growers, the BOA–AFAN collaboration seeks to scale those benefits across a significant portion of the country's smallholder population. Business Day described the move as a step to bolster national food security through targeted credit for off-season cultivation.

For many farmers, access to timely loans and inputs during the dry period is a major constraint. The partnership aims to address that gap by combining a development bank's lending capacity with AFAN's grassroots reach among farming communities.

Implementation and expected impact

Reports say the programme will support around 400,000 farmers in the upcoming dry-season cycle. The BOA fund cited in coverage — the RH-SSVCF — was presented as the vehicle for rolling out the financing and related support. The arrangement is framed as supporting continued production throughout the year rather than concentrating activity in the rainy season alone.

Coverage from multiple outlets emphasises the programme's potential to raise production, though the reports do not provide detailed forecasts of output increases or a breakdown of crops and regions to be prioritised. Details on loan amounts, repayment terms, disbursement schedules, and monitoring arrangements were not reported in the articles.

What remains unclear

While the partnership and its headline target are reported consistently, the sources do not include specific operational timelines beyond the reference to the 2026 dry-season cycle, nor do they publish precise financial figures or an implementation roadmap. Information about how the beneficiaries will be selected and how AFAN and BOA will coordinate on the ground was not provided in the reports.

The announced collaboration follows ongoing efforts by policymakers and development actors to reduce seasonal gaps in food production and strengthen farmer resilience. How effectively the programme reaches its stated goal of supporting year-round agricultural output will depend on the details of rollout and uptake by smallholders.